Sebastien Bourdais took advantage of contact between Alexander Rossi and Robert Wickens on the final restart with 2 laps to go as they battled side-by-side under braking in Turn 1 and won the Firestone GP of St. Petersburg for the 2nd year in a row over Graham Rahal.

On a restart with 2 laps to go Rossi got under Wickens as they both braked hard. Rossi's car got a bit sideways as he struggled to keep his car under control, the two touched and around went the Canadian rookie.

With 12 laps to go, Wickens and Rossi running almost nose-to-tail at the front came up to lap Charlie Kimball and Claman De Melo, and Kimball made it easy, but Rossi missed his braking point, slid wide and dropped 3 seconds behind the leader.

Then rookie Rene Binder slid into the tire wall at Turn 10, the cautions flew, and the field bunched.

Wickens made a great restart with 4 laps to go while leading and then had to do it again with 2 laps to go after Max Chilton spun.

This time Rossi got a better start and dove under Wickens as they both braked hard in Turn 1.

Rossi's car got a bit sideways as he struggled to keep his car under control on the painted runway lines, the two touched and around went the Canadian rookie as the fans around the track came to their feet in excitement.

Bourdais and Rahal stormed through to the front and the caution then flew for Wickens, which cemented Bourdais' 37th career IndyCar victory.

Wickens spins after contact with Rossi

Chris Owens/IndyCar

Rossi regained control to finish third with Wickens' Schmidt Peterson teammate James Hinchcliffe and Rossi's Andretti Autosport teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay rounding out the top-5.

Newgarden made a perfect final restart to grab seventh from Jones, while Andretti did enough to push Power down to 10th, ahead of Kanaan, Pagenaud, Chaves, Pigot and Veach.

Team co-owner Dale Coyne admitted it wasn't the best car on track, but benefited from having Bourdais in the cockpit and a little good fortune after he had to pit on the opening lap to replace a punctured tire.

"We had an eighth-place car today," Coyne said. "(Bourdais') consistency makes that a fourth-place car, and luck made it a winning car."

The triumph also confirmed for Bourdais that he was right in not considering retirement following his Indy crash last May.

"When I got the verdict of what was broken and I was going to heal pretty well, it was never a question on whether I should continue or stop," the 39-year-old Frenchman said. "Guess I'm glad I did continue."

Helio 'Spiderman' Castroneves gave the command to start the engines while partially hanging off one of the fences.

The first race of the IndyCar season was off to a typical crash filled start on the tight city streets.

There were two spins on the opening lap.

Will Power spun in the second turn as he raced rookie Robert Wickens for the lead.

After the Power spin, Tony Kanaan spun in an incident with Zach Veach that was reviewed. Ryan Hunter-Reay also had to go immediately to pit road when his car wouldn't accelerate at the start of the race.

The race would feature 8 cautions in all for various spins and crashes.

With the 37th victory of his Indy car career, Bourdais is sixth on the all-time win list. The driver of the No. 18 SealMaster Honda for Dale Coyne Racing trails Al Unser by two wins for fifth place.

Wickens led a race-high 69 laps and was disappointed to not win after coming up just 2 laps short.

From Rossi's Perspective

Rossi talking to reporters afterward

Alex, let's just dive right in. Go ahead and take us through that last lap. We'd be remiss not to start with that.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yeah, sure, of course. Yeah, normally they don't allow Push-to-Pass on restarts. You'd normally have to do a timed lap before you did it, but because of the late call to go green that lap, they allowed it, and I actually got the call when I was in the middle of Turn 13 and 14. So I had a big jump on Rob, and he got to the Push-to-Pass pretty late. The run was perfect for me going into Turn 1, and I knew there wasn't going to be very many other opportunities. Obviously he had a good car all day, and they did a great job.

Yeah, made the pop. He defended the position, which he has the right to do, but in doing so, in moving the reaction, he put me into the marbles pretty late into the corner. It's difficult with these cars and with how much we're sliding around in the first place, even on the racing line. When you're put in the marbles, it's hairy. Super unfortunate. Like you never want to see that happen. I feel bad because I feel like I could have won and he could have gotten second. You never want to see that happen, but nevertheless, it was a great job by the whole team all weekend.

I think that we showed that we had a car definitely to qualify up front yesterday, and we redeemed ourselves a little bit today. So a great work by the whole Andretti Autosport NAPA Honda team.

Q. Bearing in mind that IndyCar didn't penalize you, do you feel like that vindicates your attempt to pass, and Robert had moved too late for you to avoid it?ALEXANDER ROSSI: Yeah, they made it very clear in the drivers' meeting that the rule on blocking was you can't move in reaction. If he defended the inside, initially, yeah, out of Turn 13 or even halfway down the straight, and then I continued to go to the inside down the white line, then yeah, that's my decision and that's putting my car in danger, but there's no reason why I can't pop and stay next to him. I don't have to be all four cars in the part of the track that -- all four wheels on the part of the track nobody goes on.

Q. Alex, take us again through -- when you're closing there and you thought you had it and you said you saw Charlie, what was your reaction when that happened? What were you thinking? Did you think, that's it, I'm done, I threw it away?ALEXANDER ROSSI: Oh, no, I wasn't going to just drive by Robert. He was obviously going to make the job more difficult. But it's not like I was in the lead and I locked up and Robert drove by me. I mean, I hadn't come close to even making an attempt to pass him yet. It was no harm, no foul, it was just a loss of lap time.

Q. Have you had a chance to talk to Robert yet?ALEXANDER ROSSI: No. I will at some point, and obviously express my feelings, and I'm sure he's upset, and he has a right to be.

Q. But you do anticipate that he's upset?ALEXANDER ROSSI: Oh, probably. If you were in the lead of the race with two to go and you didn't finish, you'd be upset, yeah.

Q. Do you think that maybe braking a little bit earlier might have stopped any collision from taking place, or did you think your goose was cooked as soon as you hit the brake pedal?ALEXANDER ROSSI: My goose was totally rare until he continued to move in the braking zone and put me even more into the marbles. I had no problem pulling it up. I wasn't locked up or anything.

From Wickens’ Perspective

Obviously what was looking to be your first win in your first race in IndyCar, unfortunately torn away on the last couple of laps there. Can you take us through what happened at the end of that race?

ROBERT WICKENS: Yeah, I mean, there was a few things. First off, I've got to thank the team because we had a pretty good day. Obviously it didn't end well at all, but yeah, I mean, on the restart, I mean, I don't know what the series was doing really, but it never turned the lights off the pace car, and they did an entirely different pace car procedure than what they had done every other yellow flag procedure the whole day. As the leader I didn't have my opportunity to control the pace because if we had just followed the pace car the whole time, then he just came into the pit. So I want some explanation on that to be honest with you.

But the restart was the restart. I felt like I wasn't able to get the jump that I needed to get a gap. We both were on the Push-to-Pass. He obviously got a slipstream.

I defended a little bit, but then I realized if I went any further, it would have been a blocking, so I opened up, let him take the inside and just broke as late as possible and gave him enough space on the inside. And from my point of view, he broke too late, the track was too dirty off line. It's been terrible there all day. It's been a battle all weekend. Even in warm-up it was really hard whenever you tried it.

But my opinion, he just went too deep, locked the rears and slid into me. There's really no other explanation to it. The only pity is he carried on to a podium, and I ended up in the fence.

To be honest, I felt very comfortable with the pace I had,” said Wickens. The whole day was going better than I could have ever anticipated for my first day in IndyCar.

I let Alex get within a second of me, but he was never going to pass me [before the yellows]. He saw his opportunity, he tried, and in my opinion, it was probably a bit optimistic, but it happens.

Honestly, I knew it wasn’t going to be over until it was over, but I just hate how the day ended. I expect more from Alex. I thought we would have had a good fight.

I thought I gave him enough space that actually would have held P1. I went very late on the brakes, and he tried to stay beside me, but the track is so dirty on the inside he couldn’t keep the line and just slid into me. I don’t know. Just super disappointed.”

Alex and I are off-track friends. On-track is a different story, we race for every inch and everything we can.

I just expected more from him today. He saw how late I braked. Obviously, he’s desperate. It was the last lap and it was his last chance.

Before the race, everybody [the drivers] was joking about how slippery it was off-line, and the amount of pick-up, the amount of rubber that was out there. That’s why I didn’t defend that hard.

If you want to go there, all the more power to you. It just didn’t work.

Quotes

JOSEF NEWGARDEN (No. 1 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet): "It was a messy P7, but for us it was a good top 10. It's a decent start to the year. We had a great Chevy package - it's just sad we couldn't take better advantage of it. I felt we had really good power today from Chevrolet. The Hitachi car, overall, was pretty strong. We were just fighting all day to catch back up and we were on the wrong end on the fuel mileage and getting run into and cutting the tire didn't help us. But I think if a couple of things would've gone differently, I really think a podium finish was in the cards for today."

MATHEUS "MATT" LEIST (No. 4 ABC Supply AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet): "This was a pretty good weekend till now. Pretty happy with the performance we had - we were fast in all of the sessions. Today it was unfortunate. We had a shifting problem when I was running fourth, so I couldn't change gears up or down. I stayed in pit lane for like 10 laps trying to solve the problem. (They went back out on track.) Then we had another problem and came back to the pits. The third time I went back on the track, I had a mega understeer going into Turn 3 and I missed the corner and hit the wall. Happy for the performance - we had a fast car. I think it was my fault when I hit the wall that time. The car was good. It happens, so we'll go to the next one."

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE (No. 5 Arrow Electronics SPM Honda): "It wasn't quite the ending we wanted, but it was a good race. I tapped the wall in Turn 8 early in the first stint, and that kind of bent it out of whack a little bit. Man, on our own in clean air, the Arrow Electronics car was a rocket ship, we were setting fast laps at one point on Firestone red (alternate) tires and black (primary) tires, but once we got into traffic, I think we lost the front end too much and couldn't do anything about it. At the end there, Graham (Rahal) had a lot more push-to-pass than we did, so I was trying to threaten him and make him use up as much as he could, but it is what it is. Gutted for Robbie (Wickens) obviously, it was a storybook race from pole, but a few laps to go going for the win, Alex (Rossi) is a fast, aggressive guy and we knew something was going to be tried at least, and it's unfortunate he ended up there. Huge congratulations to the team for a solid result."

ROBERT WICKENS (No. 6 Lucas Oil SPM Honda): "I need to see it before I think I comment on anything, but I didn't really want to defend too hard because there was so many marbles off line, so I figured if Alex (Rossi) wants to go there, go for it. I gave him space around the outside. I broke late. I made the corner and then we had some contact, and obviously it put me into a spin into the wall. I ended my day with one lap left in the race. Not the way I imagined the day going for the No. 6 Lucas Oil SPM Honda. It was all a little bit confusing because I was told on the radio we were going green, but they didn't turn the lights off the pace car, so I didn't get the best restart I could have done. Probably the worst one of the whole day. I want to kind of speak to the officials to see why they didn't turn the lights off the pace car before we went green but I don't know. I just need to see everything before I comment."

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 PNC Bank Honda): "Obviously not the way we wanted to start the season here in St. Pete with the PNC Bank car today. We had a fast car this weekend, led practice Saturday, but qualifying didn't go our way and we started mid-pack. I got loose in turn one and made contact and we went to the back. After that we just focused on clawing our way back up and getting as many points as we could. I thought we could work on strategy and get a solid finish but then we served a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding which took us out of it. We never give up and we just kept fighting to the end."

ED JONES (No. 10 NTT DATA Honda): "We had a great start and made up a lot of ground, which I was happy about. I think we were smart all day and had a solid race. Everything considered, I think the first race went well. You always go back and look at some things you may have been able to do better. I'm excited about the start to the season and can't wait for Phoenix."

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): "It was pretty wild at times. It was actually good racing at times, and you can get close to people. It is a good car to race. I was on the back foot from the very beginning. (Robert) Wickens and I touched in Turn 1 and I spun around. There wasn't a lot of room. That set us back and we fought the rest of the day. The field is just very, very competitive. There are good cars all through the field with many teams. But you can race close to people. You don't get a draft, but you can almost get right behind them. They did a good job of making the kit with almost zero tow, so it makes the racing better I think. Not a perfect day, but we have a good Verizon Chevrolet team, and we will come back ready to race at Phoenix."

TONY KANAAN (No. 14 ABC Supply AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet): "Eventful day. I got hit in the beginning - that wasn't good, but we came from the back and passed a lot of cars. We had a clean day in the pits, which I asked the guys for that. The goal was a top 10 and we finished 11th, so came up a little bit short, but we'll take it. We'll go from there."

GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 15 United Rentals Honda): "The United Rentals guys did a great job out there. Certainly, yesterday wasn't what we expect of ourselves, isn't what we hoped for. Last night, what can you do. Put your heads down, you work hard. Even this morning the car wasn't phenomenal in practice. With Tom (German, engineer) and the boys, they made great changes. Our guys had good pit stops and frankly good strategy. We had the pace when we needed it, we could save a lot of fuel when we needed it, we could make passes if we needed to. It just kind of all played out for us. We will take second (place) any day. It's the best start to a season I have had since I won here in 2008. Thank you to all the fans, the turnout was great this weekend. I hope you guys enjoyed the new car. We are going to put on some great shows this year as you can see."SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS (No. 18 Team Sealmaster Honda): "I hope history is going to repeat itself until Indy, to be honest, but yeah, it's kind of interesting. We ended up qualifying poorly. We didn't get a good lap. I didn't get a good lap yesterday with one or another circumstance. With the one lap after the red flag we were comfortably in, in Group 2 prior to the red flag, and it felt like we just missed a good opportunity to start at the front. It definitely seems like this race is disjointed enough that it doesn't really seem to matter where you start, you're still going to have opportunities to make it happen, and we sure did today."

ZACHARY CLAMAN DE MELO (No. 19 The Paysafe Car Honda): "It was a good race. At the beginning we were running fourth for quite a while. The cautions didn't fall our way at the beginning, but we had a good pace. We were probably missing a little bit to the guys in front of us. Although, I did have a good battle with Dixon and kept him behind me for a while. I'm happy we held on. It's unfortunate that a small fuel issue at the end cost us couple of positions, but it's part of the game. It was all a learning experience today."

JORDAN KING (No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Fuzzy's Vodka Chevrolet): "On the positive, I led my first INDYCAR race. It is nice to be able to say that. I am reserved, so I didn't actually do it, but I did have a little bit of a mental fist pump in my mind when we took the lead. The speed was really good during the race, we genuinely had the pace to challenge for the race win. After the first stop, we picked up a puncture and slid against the wall and had some damage. It was frustrating more than anything to be hindered by that. Overall, I am happy from the sense that the speed is there, but disappointed to throw away a result. I know not every weekend is going to be like this, but it was great to be fast and challenging for the race win. It just hurts a bit when you throw away a good result like that."

SPENCER PIGOT (No. 21 Autogeek Chevrolet): "It was a pretty wild race out there. It was very tricky at the beginning going into Turn 1, trying to pass people on the paint. Early on, we were hit from behind and stalled. From there, we just had to try and battle back. We had a really good restart in the middle of the race and passed a lot of cars, then unfortunately we had another issue in the pits and couldn't get any fuel into the car. We had to make a few unscheduled pit stops to make up for that and went a lap down, putting an end to our competitiveness. We had good pace and a good chance of finishing up towards the front. It was great to have the support of Autogeek this weekend and I appreciate the all of the hard work put in by my guys."

SIMON PAGENAUD (No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet): "It was a hard-fought day. We had a tire gun problem on the first stop and I feel bad for the Menards crew. That's a tough thing to happen and they did such a good job on the next two stops. Unfortunately, that put us back in the pack and we just couldn't make up ground from there. I expected more tire degradation and that might have created some opportunities, but that never happened. It's definitely not the start to the season that we wanted but we know the Menards Chevrolet is good and we know we will bounce back strong."

CHARLIE KIMBALL (No. 23 Tresiba Chevrolet): "Honestly it was a disappointing day results-wise. At Carlin, you don't come to the track to finish 19th and 20th, our goal really is to be fighting for race wins and podiums. We came into this weekend with limited knowledge and experience in the series, but I'd say we probably doubled or even tripled our knowledge on the Indy cars here in St. Pete. I'm looking forward to going back and getting with the engineers, learning, digesting, and figuring out what we need to do in the future. We've got a couple of tests before the Phoenix race and we tested there a few weeks back, so I know that we'll be more competitive at the next race and continue to work our way forward."

ZACH VEACH (No. 26 Group One Thousand One Honda): "Today was just too messy, honestly. The biggest thing that hurt me was taking that year off of racing (due to injury in 2016). Once you're in these situations over and over again, you're honed and jump into it - it's easy to minimize the mistakes. There were just too many of them today from me to be proud of. I want to apologize to (Tony) Kanaan. He kind of left the doorway open, and I felt, invited me in and it didn't work out for either of us. All in all, had to walk away P16... but a lot learned, a lot gained. I know we weren't the fastest rookie, but with circumstances, finishing the highest rookie - that's what this year's going to be about. You're going to have good days and bad days. It's just all about consistency. The speed is there, it's just all of the details I have to clean up. Most of all, I can take away patience. Just understanding how the races are going to fold out. And just how long the races actually are. The two races I did last year really don't quantify how long these races are. The more I get under my belt, the easier it will get."

ALEXANDER ROSSI (No. 27 NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda): "Normally they don't allow push-to-pass on restarts. You'd normally have to do a timed lap before you did it, but because of the late call to go green that lap, they allowed it, and I actually got the call when I was in the middle of Turn 13 and 14. So I had a big jump on Rob (Wickens), and he got to the push-to-pass pretty late. The run was perfect for me going into Turn 1, and I knew there wasn't going to be many other opportunities. Obviously (Wickens) had a good car all day, and they did a great job. I made the pop. He defended the position, which he has the right to do, but in doing so, in moving the reaction, he put me into the marbles pretty late into the corner. It's difficult with these cars and with how much we're sliding around in the first place, even on the racing line. When you're put in the marbles, it's hairy. Super unfortunate. Like you never want to see that happen. I feel bad because I feel like I could have won and he could have gotten second. You never want to see that happen, but nevertheless, it was a great job by the whole team all weekend. I think that we showed that we had a car definitely to qualify up front yesterday, and we redeemed ourselves a little bit today. So, a great work by the whole Andretti Autosport NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda team."RYAN HUNTER-REAY (No. 28 DHL Honda): "The bad luck seems to end up happening at just the worst times. The car has been awesome all weekend, so to have an electronic issue happen when we are coming to the green - man, the luck. We started the race from pit lane and ended up fifth, so a great job by the team. I was hustling my rear end off out there today. That No. 28 DHL Honda sure was quick and deserved a better finish than it had. We just need to have better luck, or no luck, and hopefully we can start finishing these things right up at the front. It was great to have all our friends from DHL and AutoNation here with us today, and a big thanks to the fans for making this such a great event."

TAKUMA SATO (No. 30 Mi-Jack / Panasonic Honda): "It was a wild race. The start was actually pretty sketchy. Will (Power) spun in front of us and did a great job to not hit anything. We gained a position there then we lost it again. After the restart it looked like our pace was OK. It was a fun battle through the field, but then we got hit by (Scott) Dixon and got a right rear puncture and it also damaged the diffuser. It was a shame after qualifying in the Firestone Fast Six. Then we were running in the middle of the pack and tried to recover by doing a different pit strategy, but nothing worked and we finished 12th. Big congrats to Graham (Rahal). He was having a difficult weekend and brought the team a fantastic result. I think we learned a lot. There are a lot of positives. We will keep on pushing."

RENE BINDER (No. 32 Binderholz tiptop timber Chevrolet): "It was my first Verizon IndyCar Series race and I found it quite tough, but I am pleased with the progress we have made. In the beginning of the race there were several safety cars and dust, which made it more difficult. Unfortunately, I did not finish the race, but came close. We are still analyzing our data to improve. Overall, I learned a lot and I want to thank Binderholz, Chevrolet, Ricardo Juncos, and the entire Juncos Team."

MAX CHILTON (No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet): "We just finished our first race ever for the Carlin INDYCAR team. The No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet started 20th, but we finished 19th so we moved forward one position. It was a long hard race. I think it was around two hours and 20 minutes and there were probably six or seven yellow sessions, so it was really hard to keep our tires up to temperature which was something we were struggling with all day. When the tires were in, we had good performance so we made gains throughout the weekend. Considering this was Carlin's first INDYCAR race, I'd say it wasn't a bad showing at all. We definitely have work to do and we aren't where we want to be yet. I think all-around we did a good job and we'll make sure we're ready for Phoenix."

JACK HARVEY (No. 60 AutoNation/Sirius XM MSR w/SPM Honda): "We had a good start and gained a few positions on the actual start. We aren't exactly sure what happened just yet. I was in the middle of Turns 11 and 12, and I just lost the car big time and it got away from me. I think overall we had a pretty good weekend, obviously not the best weekend that we were hoping for. It was right where we expected to be and we found areas where we need to do some more work. We didn't achieve the objective this weekend because we didn't see the checkered flag, which was frustrating. But the guys have done a really great job and we will just keep moving forward. The fact that we are here and giving it our best shot is where we all want to be. I have a great team of people behind me and we will come back strong at Long Beach."

GABBY CHAVES (No. 88 Harding Group Chevrolet): "Long day at the race track. It was a long hard race, but I'm really happy and proud of the Harding Racing guys. We had very good progression throughout the weekend and ended up very competitive from where we started. I thought we had a car to run in the top six or eight all day. Unfortunately, we had an issue with our fuel hose in the first pit stop that set us back. After that we just settled in and tried to have our own race, I thought we had decent pace and I'm very happy with finishing 14th. I'm very much looking forward to the next race."MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 98 Ruoff Home Mortgage / Curb Honda): "In the beginning, we seemed to have pace on (Firestone alternate) reds. Then, sort of got caught on blacks (Firestone primary tires) in the middle and it gave up a bit of time. On the last third of the early-on stint, we started to lose pace on reds so we wanted to come in and cover. We sort of split the baby on that one. We came out of the pits in traffic, which was unfortunate, but we drove the Ruoff Home Mortgage car to third from 18th. We had to have been the ones to pass the most cars today. Overall, we're still top 10 and we had pace, and that's better than lucking into a top-10 finish. Good things are ahead from the No. 98."

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